Consumers use nail polishes to cosmetically enhance their nails or protect the nails from everyday conditions and stressors. However, these nail polishes are deficient in many respects, including their inability to provide long wear. Nail polishes which are known or currently available often exhibit deterioration, particularly in the form of chipping or peeling, in as few as one or two days. The occurrence of this deterioration often forces consumers to remove their nail polish soon after original application and reapply additional nail polish to the nails. Consumers may also attempt to correct the unsightly appearance of the deteriorating nail polish by "touching-up" the areas of the nail which exhibit the deterioration, a practice which actually impairs the overall look of the nail polish. Finally, consumers may choose to do nothing about the deterioration and allow, for example, chipping and peeling to progress, resulting in nails which are not only minimally protected from the environment but are unsightly as well.
The art is replete with nail polish compositions which are promoted as having long wear, good adhesion, and/or resistance to chipping. While some nail polish compositions provide better wear than others, a need remains for nail polishes which provide long wear. It would therefore be desirable to provide nail polishes having improved wear properties.
The present inventors have discovered that one property which enhances the wear of a water-borne nail polish is the drying rate which that polish exhibits. Nail polishes delivered from a liquid diluent, such as organic solvent or water, must go through a drying phase which can last from several minutes to many hours. Throughout the duration of this drying phase, the nail polish is particularly susceptible to such damage as scratching, denting, and deterioration. Accordingly, nail polishes which rapidly form dry films will exhibit longer and more beautiful wear.
Several conventional nail polishes are promoted as exhibiting rapid drying rates. However, such polishes typically comprise solvent-borne nitrocellulose which tends to be brittle and inelastic. Such brittleness and inelasticity ultimately lead to chipping and peeling which are hallmarks of poor nail polish wear.
In contrast, known water-borne polishes tend to dry too slowly. To enhance the drying rate of the polishes, formulators often add in drying accelerators at relatively low levels. However, addition of the drying accelerator typically causes instability of the dispersed film-forming polymer, thus "crashing out" the polymer. The present inventors have surprisingly discovered that addition of higher levels of water-miscible organic solvent to a water-borne polymer provides a more stable formulation which provides the desired fast-drying property.
Accordingly, the present inventors have surprisingly discovered water-borne nail polish compositions and kits comprising the compositions which exhibit both rapid drying rates and improved wear at a superior level relative to those presently known and used.